#rp19 Speaker Michael Colville-Andersen: Back to the Future in Urban Design
Mikael Colville-Andersen has been working passionately to transform and improve cities for over a decade. He founded Copenhagenize Design Company in 2007, released his book Copenhagenize in 2018 and worked tirelessly on urban planning projects in between.
Mikael is best known for his philosophy about simplifying urban planning and urban cycling. This philosophy is built on a straight-forward question: What are streets? While a tacit understanding that streets are mostly planned for automobiles prevails today, they initially served a much broader purpose: For thousands of years, streets were not only used for transportation, but also served as community spaces. They were playgrounds for children, meeting points for neighbours to gossip and the place to do trade.
In his keynote speech at #rp19, Mikael will detail how cities should be at the forefront of fighting climate change and highlight the crucial role of the bicycle in this fight. Mikael’s keynote will be a plea for us to design our cities in a human-to-human process instead of relying on traffic engineering. Once we start putting anthropology, sociology and transport psychology first, effective urban transformation will follow.
Find his session here.